1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical card connector and more particularly, to a smart card connector mounted on a printed circuit board (PCB).
2. Description of the Related Art
Electrical card connectors are usually mounted on a circuit board as a component of a contact device for receiving smart cards. The connector comprises a plurality of contacts for electrically connecting with gold fingers of an inserted smart card (chip card). U.S. Pat. No. 6,352,445 B2 issued to Takei on Mar. 5, 2002 discloses a card connector. The Takei card connector is provided for receiving memory cards and includes a connector body and a plurality of cantilevered terminals mounted in the connector body. Each terminal extends in a rear-to-front direction and includes rear-anchoring portion retained in the connector body and a cantilevered resilient arm extending forwardly from the anchoring portion. A contact portion projects upwardly from a front free end of the cantilevered resilient arm beyond an insulative body to connect a card. Being inserted into the connector body in a front-to-rear direction, a front end of a card downwardly deflects the contact portion, whereby gold fingers of the card electrically connect with the terminals.
However, because the rear-to-front extending directions of terminals are contrary to the front-to-rear insertion direction of the card, the front end of the inserted card tend to upwardly deflect the upwardly projecting contact portion, resulting damage of the terminals. Furthermore, the terminals of a current card connector are too tiny to have flexibility to come normal positions after a period of use, resulting in an unreliable connection with the inserted card.
Hence, an electrical connector with improved terminals is needed to overcome the foregoing shortcomings.